Revelnnovation

If you are a creative that has found a way to live, counter-culture, in corporate society, in a corporate job, or in any bureacracy that is public or private, this might just validate some of that long-suffering vibe about the climate for your creativity and innovation. 

A rare few institutions have found ways to structure in ongoing creativity and innovation. Proctor & Gamble has innovation built into their plan for success. The Mayo Clinic holds a yearly innovation summit with 400 leaders and an social media infrastructure built in to share the summit with it's 50,000 organizational members.  3M and Google have famously built in "create" time into their work structures.  A curation source for these institutions and innovation stories is here.

via flickr.com

On the other side of the fence, many creatives & innovators leave organizations to work for themselves, unfettered by "silence and eye-rolls" for creative ideas and plans, as most institutions attract those who value safety, security, and longitivity ~ or at lease the perception of those qualities in an institutional setting.

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Innovation bringing about the next Michigan

Audio of the "Destination: Innovation" event in Troy, Michigan

• Opening
• Innovation defined
• Innovation defined part 2
• Innovation in action

Related podcasts:

• Soji Adelaja, Director of Michigan State University's Land Policy Institute talks with WWJ's Ron Dewey on the change in culture necessary in order to fix Michigan's economy.
• Jeff DeGraff, Clinical Professor of Business Administration, Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, talks about how Michigan lost its edge. WWJ's Ron Dewey with the interview.
• Judy Johncox, Associate Vice President for Technology Commericialization at Wayne State University talks about what is at the heart of an entrepenuer. WWJ’s Ron Dewey with the interview.
• URC Executive Director Jeff Mason on Destination Innovation
• Terry Cross, executive in residence-entrepreneurship at Wayne State University discusses his program and innovation with WWJ's Beth Fisher.

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• Innovation requires a lot of variation - a lot of diversity, lot of touch points, a lot of pushing and shoving in a positive and constructive way…
• The more things are aligned, the more they create efficiencies and standards.
• But they eliminate variation, that is what fuels innovation...

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Photos from the event »

TROY, Mich. (WWJ) -- What will it take for Michigan to get its economic groove back? At WWJ's "Destination: Innovation" Business Breakfast in Troy, business and University Research Corridor leaders agreed that entrepreneurialism is the key.

During Thursday's event, WWJ had a chance to hear from some of the top minds in Michigan about how we can bring new business, new technology and jobs to our state.

Judy Johncox helps turn ideas into action at Wayne State University's TechTown. She said the key to being an entrepreneur is to surround yourself with other idea people.

...Jeff Mason is Executive Director of Michigan’s University Research Corridor, which is a collaboration between the state's three largest universities. "We've lost some of that 'mojo', if you will, in terms of innovation and entrepreneurship," Mason said.

"[We had] a hundred years of tinkerers and inventors and builders, and 'can do', and a sense of destiny -- I think that one of the things that happend in the 80's, in the downturn, is things got very conservative here," DeGraff said.

DeGraff says he sees these can-do people coming out of his classrooms. The roblem is, they take their amazing ideas out of Michigan. And DeGraff says that has to change.

...Rich Sheridan, CEO of Menlo Innovations...says...Michigan needs to "move away from an economy of entitlement and move toward an economy of entrepreneurship." Sheridan says, in his business, he loves to see creative conflict arise in the conference room, which, he says, fuels innovative ideas.

Experts to discuss how innovation can jump start Michigan's economy

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The necessity of human ingenuity is undisputed. A recent IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as the No. 1 “leadership competency” of the future. Yet it’s not just about sustaining our nation’s economic growth.

 

All around us are matters of national and international importance that are crying out for creative solutions, from saving the Gulf of Mexico to bringing peace to Afghanistan to delivering health care.

 

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In effect, it’s left to the luck of the draw who becomes creative: there’s no concerted effort to nurture the creativity of all children.

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Such solutions emerge from a healthy marketplace of ideas, sustained by a populace constantly contributing original ideas and receptive to the ideas of others.

 

via flickr.com

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 Around the world, though, other countries are making creativity development a national priority.

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It’s too early to determine conclusively why U.S. creativity scores are declining. One likely culprit is the number of hours kids now spend in front of the TV and playing videogames rather than engaging in creative activities. Another is the lack of creativity development in our schools. In effect, it’s left to the luck of the draw who becomes creative: there’s no concerted effort to nurture the creativity of all children.

Around the world, though, other countries are making creativity development a national priority.

• In 2008 British secondary-school curricula—from science to foreign language—was revamped to emphasize idea generation, and pilot programs have begun using Torrance’s test to assess their progress. 

• The European Union designated 2009 as the European Year of Creativity and Innovation, holding conferences on the neuroscience of creativity, financing teacher training, and instituting problem-based learning programs—curricula driven by real-world inquiry—for both children and adults. 

• In China there has been widespread education reform to extinguish the drill-and-kill teaching style. Instead, Chinese schools are also adopting a problem-based learning approach.

Overwhelmed by curriculum standards, American teachers warn there’s no room in the day for a creativity class.   ...Researchers say creativity should be taken out of the art room and put into homeroom. ...Creativity isn’t about freedom from concrete facts. Rather, fact-finding and deep research are vital stages in the creative process. Scholars argue that current curriculum standards can still be met, if taught in a different way.

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 While our creativity scores decline unchecked, the current national strategy for creativity consists of little more than praying for a Greek muse to drop by our houses. ...Fortunately, the science can help....

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To understand exactly what should be done requires first understanding the new story emerging from neuroscience.

...Creativity has always been prized in American society, but it’s never really been understood. While our creativity scores decline unchecked, the current national strategy for creativity consists of little more than praying for a Greek muse to drop by our houses. The problems we face now, and in the future, simply demand that we do more than just hope for inspiration to strike. Fortunately, the science can help: we know the steps to lead that elusive muse right to our doors.

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Library

This section contains reviews and references to recommended innovation books and articles. It also contains references to where literature can be bought or downloaded.

2010 –   Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age

Author(s): Shirky, Clay Year: 2010 Publisher: Penguin Press Category: Online communities Type: Book Purchase: Amazon Summary: The author of the breakout hit Here Comes Everybody reveals how new technology is changing us from consumers to collaborators, unleashing a torrent of creative production that will transform our world. For decades, technology encouraged people to squander their time and intellect as passive consumers. Today, tech has finally caught up with human potential. In Cognitive Surplus, Internet guru Clay Shirky forecasts the thrilling changes we will all enjoy as new digital technology puts our untapped resources of talent and goodwill to use at last. Shirky envisions an era of lower creative quality on average but greater innovation, an increase in transparency in all areas of society, and a dramatic rise in productivity that will transform our civilization.

 

Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations

Author(s): Shirky, Clay Year: 2009 Publisher: Penguin Category: Online Communities Type: Book Purchase: Amazon Summary: Blogs, wikis and other Web 2.0 accoutrements are revolutionizing the social order, a development that’s cause for more excitement than alarm, argues interactive telecommunications professor Shirky. He contextualizes the digital networking age with philosophical, sociological, economic and statistical theories and points to its major successes and failures. Grassroots activism stands among the winners.

 

Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business

Author(s): Howe, Jeff Year: 2009 Publisher: Three Rivers Press Category: Online Communities Type: Book Purchase: Amazon Summary: Beyond the wisdom of crowds is the work of crowds, a powerful and transformative source of creativity and an economic engine that defies traditional rules. Jeff Howe has captured a complex and vital change in the business landscape: in the next few years, your customers could become your collaborators, or your competitors.

 

We-Think: Mass innovation, not mass production

Author(s): Leadbeater, Charles Year: 2009 Publisher: Profile Books Category: Online Communities Type: Book Purchase: Amazon Summary: Society is no longer based on mass consumption but on mass participation. New forms of collaboration—such as Wikipedia, Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube—are paving the way for an age in which people want to be players, rather than mere spectators, in the production process. We-Think explains how the rise of mass collaboration will affect us and the world in which we live.

 

Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization’s Toughest Challenges

Author(s): McAfee, Andrew Year: 2009 Publisher: Harvard Business School Press Category: Innovation Technologies Type: Book Purchase: Amazon Summary: In just a few years, Web 2.0 communities have demonstrated astonishing levels of innovation, knowledge accumulation, collaboration, and collective intelligence. Now, leading organizations are bringing the Web’s novel tools and philosophies inside, creating Enterprise 2.0. In this book, Andrew McAfee shows how they’re doing this, and why it’s benefiting them. Enterprise 2.0 makes clear that the new technologies are good for much more than just socializing-when properly applied, they help businesses solve pressing problems, capture dispersed and fast-changing knowledge, highlight and leverage expertise, generate and refine ideas, and harness the wisdom of crowds.

 

Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Create Unity, and Reap Big Results

Author(s): Hansen, Morten T. Year: 2009 Publisher: Harvard Business School Press Category: Online Communities Type: Book Purchase: Amazon Summary: In today’s competitive environment, companywide collaboration is an imperative for successful strategy execution, yet the sought-after synergies are rarely, if ever, realized. In fact, most cross-unit collaborative efforts end up wasting time, money, and resources. How can managers avoid the costly traps of collaboration and instead start getting the results they need? In this book, Hansen shows managers how to get collaboration right through ‘disciplined collaboration’.

 

The Art of Community: Building the New Age of Participation

Author(s): Bacon, Jono Year: 2009 Publisher: O’Reilly Media Category: Online Communities Type: Book Purchase: Amazon Summary: Online communities offer a wide range of opportunities today, whether you’re supporting a cause, marketing a product or service, or developing open source software. The Art of Community will help you develop the broad range of talents you need to recruit members to your community, motivate and manage them, and help them become active participants.

Free revealing and the private-collective model for innovation incentives

PDF article

Author(s): von Hippel, E. & von Krogh, G. Year: 2006 Publisher: Social Science Research Network Category: Innovation incentives Type: Article Purchase: Here Summary: Von Hippel and von Krogh summarizes a number of historical well-documented cases (steam engines, semi-conductors, medical machinery, sports equipment) for free revealing. Then pragmatically puts on the glasses of the entrepreneur/innovator and argue for how free revealing

Credit: Courtesy, iStockphoto

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“A crucial aspect of this index is the link between innovation measured on this index and current and future financial performance,” -- Gerard Tellis, professor and director of the Marshall Center for Global Innovation at USC.

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A new index suggests that innovation is a valid measure of portfolio formation just like size, value, growth, and price, says Gerard Tellis. “Polls suffer from the tyranny of hype. Names that get early recognition get greater visibility in the press, which accentuates their popularity, leading to a positive cascade in their favor. A crucial aspect of this index is the link between innovation measured and current and future financial performance.”

USC (US)—Portfolios of top companies on a new index of innovative firms appear to perform better than the S&P 500—in up markets—and almost as well when markets are down. What’s more, the superior performance comes without excessive risk.

“The results suggest that innovation is a valid criterion of portfolio formation, just as the current criteria of size, value, growth, and price,” says Gerard Tellis, professor and director of the Marshall Center for Global Innovation at USC.

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 ...In the five years between 2004 and 2008,...a portfolio of top 20 firms in the Index yields a cumulative return that is 46 percent higher than the S&P 500 for concurrent years.

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Tellis and Andreas Eisingerich, assistant professor at Imperial College, London, developed the index using a sample drawn from Fortune’s list of the 300 largest U.S. firms and Business Week’s list of the 100 most innovative firms, between 2004 and 2008.

...“A crucial aspect of this index is the link between innovation measured on this index and current and future financial performance,” says Tellis.

... “The ultimate test of an index is whether it can predict stock market performance a year ahead,” says Eisingerich.

For example: In the five years between 2004 and 2008, an annual paper investment of $10,000 in a portfolio of top 20 firms in the Index yields a cumulative return that is 46 percent higher than the S&P 500 for concurrent years.

The authors are updating the study to include 2009 and 2010 data and plan to test the performance of the index on real investments.

USC news: www.usc.edu/uscnews/